Luck is Earned

Remember to work

Wishing your friend well, with good words, is necessary. Human beings need words because the only thing that truly separates us from apes is our sophisticated ability to express ourselves, to communicate, in ways multifarious. Our friends need words like cold water to the face, voltage jolt, espresso shot hitting the blood, teflon armor for the onslaught of the day, a knife in the sleeve for an alpha invading the proximitas.

The idea “Good luck” is misleading.

As if 1,000 people telling you “good luck” will fatefully get you through that job interview successfully.

As if thinking about “good luck” really, really wincingly hard, will rewrite the laws of motion so that you become the nucleus for the moment you have to face.

As if 100 likes from Facebook will just like, you know, make the day skippingly sunny.

Fuck “Good luck.”

Haruki Murakami, writer of 12 novels, “wakes at 4:00 A.M. and works for five to six straight. In the afternoon, he runs or swims (or does both), runs errands, reads, and listens to music; bedtime is 9:00. ‘I keep to this routine every day without variation.’”

It’s called work.

Predicting the job interview questions and crafting answers married with body language and rehearsing at least 10 fucking times.

Editing 3 hours of video footage — for 17 hours over 2 days of forgotten meals — into 1 blissful minute of a journey.

Going out to meet people in your industry in the spare moments you have instead of watching Cake Boss-Suits-Gossip Girl-gahgahgoogooblahblahblahblahblah.

(And not to “network” — to genuinely want to help people out with the project they are trying to finish.)

This very piece is being written on a Sunday morning in Hanoi, grinding it out — only after driving round town on the motorbike — jolting the senses — clawing through this hangover, two cups of Americano — Kelis’ Flashback on loop.